Bladed hide, skin, or leather working machine



Nov. 5, 1929. WP. AYLES 1,734,106

BLADED HIDE, SKIN, OR LEATHER WORKING MACHINE File d Dec. 7, 1923 res ' FFICE WILLIAM FIELDEB AYLES, OF OXI-IEY, ENGLAND BLADED HIDE, SKIN, OR LEATHER WORKING MACHINE Application filed December 7, 1823, Serial No. 679,059, and in Great Britain October 24, 1923.

This invention relates to bladed hide, skin and leather working machines in which pieces of work are Operated upon by the edge or edges of a blade or blades and is illustrated 5 as embodied in blades for staking machines. In prior types of staking machines having reciprocatory staking heads, the blades whatever their form or shape are provided with working edges formed in a continuous line. Such blades, however, do not satisfactorily perform the work for which they are designed, inasmuch as, owing to the almost infinite variety of texture and substance and consequent degrees of firmness, encountered in any one hide or skin, the surface presented to the unbroken working edge of the blade or blades is not as uniform and unyielding as, and therefore not at every point in close contact with, the said edge of the blade or blades acted upon throughout the entire area over which the blade passes. In attempts to overcome this defective action of continuousedged blades, resort has been had to increased Working pressure with the result that frequently bursting of the grain surface of the hide or skin and tearing occurs owing to the fact that for some portions of the hide, skin or leather under treatment the pressure and consequent pull are excessive. Loss from this cause is regularly experienced in all leather factories. In blades of general utility in leather working machines, it has hitherto been proposed to notch the operative edge of aconvexly curved blade.

'With such a construction there is danger of damaging any but the toughest hides, skins or leather. Furthermore,'the operationof 'the blade is not uniform throughout its 40 working edge due to sharp differences in contour in closelyadjacent portions of the blade. Accordingly it is an object of the present invention to provide for more equal and uniform treatment of every part of the surface of the hide or skin, and the fundamental so that it cannot possibly be uniformly.

principle upon which the invention is based consists in enabling the hide or skin to adapt itself more closely to the working edge of the blade or blades than is possible with the blades hitherto in use, and without havingresort to the excessive pressure hereinbefore mentioned. I

This object is attained, in theillustrated construction, by breaking the continuity of the working edge of the blade orblades and creating, by sub-dividing it, a plurality of spaced short working edgesin the blade or blades. Such sub-divisions may conveniently be provided by waving, or arching, the said Working edge and the waves or arches, thus formed maybe of uniform length or they may gradually increase or decrease from the blade centre outwardly. A blade so constructed may be provided with an edge having curved portions the direction ofwhich never diverges more than 45 from parallelism to the longitudinal axis of the blade, thus providing a plurality of work contacting edges to all of which the hide or skin will readily adapt itself, no matter what itstex-; ture or substance may be at the severalpoints, so that in passing over the hide or skin, each of these contact points will effectively treat a strip of the hide or skin corresponding in width to the length ofthe respective subdivision in the working edge of the blade. 5 Preferably, and as shown, the work contacting edges of the individual blades in a set of blades, are so offset or staggered in relation to each other that the work contacting edges'ofeach blade operate along paths or upon strips in a hide or skin which are be tween the strips operated upon by the similar- 1y shaped edges of the other blade or blades.

Inasmuch as the hide or skin adapts itself readily to the described working edge of the blade or blades relatively little pressure is required to effect operationof the blade-or blades on the pieces of work, so that the most important factor producing burst grain,

7 ing the staggere .tive edgeof the blade. tinuou'sly smooth unbroken edge of this waved blade, the operations on the work are "More uniform than with-those blades having as minimum.

length the waved sub-divisional working edges in closely adjacent portions.

and waste is eliminated, while the operation itself is more efliciently and speedily performed with less physical and mechanicalexertion than with the blades hitherto in use.

In the accompanying drawings,-

Fig. 1 shows a blade having a symmetrically waved operating edge.

Fig. 2 shows a blade similar to Fig. 1 in which the projecting work-contacting edges are gradually decreased. in length from the center outwardly.

Fig. 3 is a die rammatic elevation showarrangem'ent of the subdivisions of the working edges of two blades of the type disclosed in Fig. 1; and

Fig. 4 is a perspective view of blades of a modified form in which thesub-divisions of the working edges of the blades are arched and arranged in staggered relation so as to work on difiterent strips of the hide or skin.

In the blade 10-, which is especially designed for use in staking machines '(see Fig. lot the drawings), the operative edge of the bladeis waved in the plane of theblade, produeing reversely curved portions or crests and troughs 12 and 14-, respectively, the portions 12 being convexly curved while portions 14 aleconcavely curved with the edges of the eonvexly curved portions merging smoothly or gradually, that is, without interruption, into the eoncavely formed edges. By reason of this construction and arrangement of the reversely curved portions of the blade there is presented to the work a smoothly curved edge throughout the whole length of the blade. Furthermore, the direction of the carved portions never diverges more than from parallelism with the longitudinal axis of. the blade. .In other words, there is no sharply angular portion, notch, or other abrupt change in the direction of the opera- Because of the consudden changes in the direction of the edge Moreover, the possibility of damage to the work is reduced ",While the sub-divisional working edges of the waved type in F ig. 1, are all of uniform "shown in Fig. 2'diminish in length from the centre wave l'to'both sides as at 2.

The diagram of-Fig. 3 illustrates' how the 1 sub-divisional. working edges of two blades and B, by being staggered one'in relation a) the other, operate upon the whole surface bf the hide or skin, the'worki-ng sub-divisions of blade A, sweeping strips 0: of the hide or skin, wh ile those bf blade B sweep the strips reference to Fig. 4 of the drawings, it

i will be observed that each of the blades A,

13 ,6, 3) has an operative edge provided with arched or convexly curved work treatalternation with non-convex ing portions 16 spaced from each other in the same plane by non-convex portions 18, which preferably and as shown are straightedged. This is a less expensive blade to manufacture than that disclosed in Fig. 1 of the drawings and is suitable for operations upon heavier pieces of work and upon many different classes of work when the flesh side is presented for the operation of the blade instead of the grain side. In this form of blade also the direction of each convexly curved portion 16 never diverges more than {15 from parallelism tov the longitudinal axis of the blade. Preferably, and as shown, blades of the ty 3e A, B, C, D will be used in sets with t e convexities in staggered relation in adjacent blades, as illustrated in Fig. 4 of the drawings wherein they are shown as operating upon strips, a, b, c-, d, of the hide or skin, respectively. As here arranged each of the said strips is worked upon by oneblade sub-divisions in all the blades will then have to be duplicated. Any number'of blades and any desired combination in the relative positions of the sub-divisional working edges in the several blades may be employed, as'for example, if in the example shown in Fig. '4 only three blades A, B, D, were provided the sub-divisional workingedges of blade A might be'so arranged as-to sweep the strips a and 0, while the strips 5 and d are being swept by the blades B and 1) respectively.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new and desireto secure by Letters vPatent of the United States isc+ I 1. A scraping blade for use in machines for staking hldes, skins,-an d pieces'of leather having, in the plane of the blade, convexly curved portions of substantial convexity in ortions of substantially thesame length as t e adjacent con-,

vexly curved portions. 2. A scraping ,blade for use in machines for staking hides, skins, and pieces ofleather having, in the plane of theblade, curved por tions the direction of which, never diverges merge smoothly into each other and are sub- 7 stantially of equal length i- I WILLIAM FIELDER AYLES. 

